The deal that Intel struck with President Donald Trump to give the U.S. government a 10% stake in the company is still under discussion, the White House said on Thursday, after the struggling chipmaker acknowledged it received $5.7 billion as part of the agreement.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters the deal was a "creative solution" proposed by Trump that the Department of Commerce was putting into action.
"The Intel deal is still being ironed out by the Department of Commerce," Leavitt told a regular news briefing. "The t's are still being crossed, the i's are still being dotted," she said. "It's very much still under discussion."
Asked to elaborate, a White House official said some aspects of the Intel deal, namely a $3 billion Secure Enclave award from the Department of Defense, were not yet fully implemented.
It was not immediately clear if Leavitt's remarks suggested the Intel deal could still be revised in some way.
Intel finance chief David Zinsner told an investor conference on Thursday that Intel received $5.7 billion in cash on Wednesday night as part of the deal.
The stake in Intel announced by the U.S. government last week is an incentive for Intel to retain control of its contract manufacturing business, or foundry, Zinsner said.
As part of the deal, the government negotiated an additional 5% warrant, should Intel cease to own more than 51% of its foundry operation.
"I don't think there's a high likelihood that we would take our stake below 50%," Zinsner said. "So ultimately, I would expect (the warrant) to expire worthless."
The Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker raised $2 billion from SoftBank Group in the form of an equity stake earlier this month, and has vowed to slash its staff to 75,000 as part of CEO Lip-Bu Tan's effort to turn around the company.
The CEO's plans have included seeking to find big customers for its manufacturing business and cleave off businesses he does not view as crucial.
Intel has taken steps to separate its contract chip manufacturing arm, or foundry, from its design business. Foundries like TSMC make chips for design companies such as Nvidia and AMD that do not own manufacturing operations.
Intel has previously said it could take outside investment in the foundry unit, and it has created a separate management board to govern it.
Should Intel take outside investors for the foundry business, Zinsner said the company was leaning toward taking a strategic investor versus a financial one. But Intel is "years away from that."
In July, Intel disclosed that the future of its foundry business depended on securing a big customer for its next-generation manufacturing process known as 14A. Failing that, it could get out of the foundry business altogether.
On Thursday, Zinsner downplayed the potential risk to its foundry. "The lawyers are always looking for areas where we should be elaborating in terms of our risks," he said.
Intel is focused on landing a big customer next year but is committed to maintaining "financial discipline" while developing the next-generation manufacturing technology and technique, Zinsner said. The investment in 14A for only Intel's internal use is too great to provide an "appropriate" return on investment for shareholders, he said.
Intel shares were up 0.2% at $24.90 on Thursday afternoon.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has also delayed announcing long-promised tariffs on imported semiconductor chips, with an administration official saying the news was not expected this week.
